According to the relevant provisions of the Patent Law of the People's Republic of China, if the same product has been manufactured, the same method has been used, or the necessary preparations have been made for...more
Under the patent statute, any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent,” subject to the...more
ugust 1 is the deadline for broadcast stations licensed to communities in California, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin to place their Annual EEO Public File Report in their Public Inspection File and...more
Arthrex recently filed a certiorari petition with the Supreme Court in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew Inc. (a case related to Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., which has also the subject of petitions from the U.S. government...more
Semiconductor Components, doing business as ON Semiconductor, petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of several claims of Power Integration’s U.S. Patent No. 6,212,079. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted...more
Petitioners beware. Your Notice of Filing date needs to be reviewed immediately – and not just the notice email, because the email does not alert petitioner to defects in filing....more
One of the benefits of a patent under the U.S. system is, for a limited time, the patent owner gets the exclusive right to manufacture, use and sell the invention. The public policy behind this is to create an incentive for...more
A valid priority claim can allow a patent application to benefit from the filing date of an earlier patent application so as to exclude certain prior art from consideration. The recent decision of the U.S. Federal Circuit in...more
On September 2, 2016, the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruled that U.S. Patent No. 9,157,017 (the “’017 patent”) was eligible for post-grant review (PGR) even though, on its face, the patent claims priority to a...more
Patent applicants who have filed a priority application (such as a U.S. Provisional application) may wish to abandon and then refile that priority application to extend the time available for filing a utility application. ...more
What are the dates to which prior art must adhere, in examination of claims in a continuation-in-part (CIP) nonprovisional patent application? Each claim in a CIP, whether independent or dependent, has its own priority date....more
In Inguran, LLC v. Premium Genetics (UK) Ltd., the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted Post Grant Review (PGR) proceedings in a patent granted from an AIA transition application based on its finding that at...more
Last week, we analyzed the Federal Circuit's Dynamic Drinkware, LLC v. National Graphics, Inc. case from early September. In that case, the Federal Circuit held that an IPR petitioner did not adequately demonstrate that an...more
In Dynamic Drinkware, LLC v. National Graphics, Inc., the Federal Circuit held that in order for a patent to qualify as prior art as of its provisional application filing date, the provisional application must support the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB or Board), finding that an IPR petitioner failed to meet its burden of proving that a cited prior art U.S. patent reference...more
In a precedential decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board stated that it “shall not take cognizance of fractions of a day” and ruled that documents filed on the same day are assumed to be filed at the same time. 3PMC,...more
When used effectively, brand and merchandise licensing can increase the value of a brand by extending it into new, relevant product categories and by further monetizing brand equity. And when seeking to protect a brand in...more
As noted in “Patents are of National Origin,” obtaining a patent in one country, does not give the owner of the patent worldwide protection for the invention. Instead, a patent application must be filed in or for each country...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently extended the compliance date for the broker-dealer recordkeeping, reporting and monitoring requirements of the Large Trader Reporting Rule from May 1, 2013 to November 1,...more
March 16, 2013 is rapidly approaching. This date is significant because it is the effective date of Section 3 of the American Invents Act (AIA). Section 3 of AIA includes the first-inventor-to-file provisions (FITF). Most of...more